Haiku

Is it too arrogant to include some of my own work here? I hope not. I'm taking a poetry class with the Quebec Writer's' Foundation and our first assignment is to write some haiku of our own. I started with gusto, preparing poems whose verses fit the 5-7-5 syllabic beat. Apparently, the assignment was rather different (see below for the haiku guidelines of Robyn Sarah). Anyway, here is one of my poems that will probably not make it to class for not fulfilling the assignment's requirements. Hope you enjoy...

Fire

At Decarie and
Cote St. Luc, CBC warns
Of a house-fire.

A house-fire is
Not just a report between
Traffic and weather.

Flames in a window
Fourth story, graffiti on
The fire escape.

I see from my car
Ambulance, flames, fire trucks
from the Decarie.

No one cares about
this Cote St. Luc apartment
Graffiti strewn walls.

Bernard St. Laurent
Says the fire is spreading
I am in traffic.

Someone’s house burning
Bed, plant, pillow, blanket and
Cereal boxes.

She could have two young
Children or smoke crack and hash
Or work at a Dep.

The paper does not
Say whose apartment burned down.
Today or the next.


Robyn Sarah's assignment (please try if you wish)
For a Haiku:
1. A composite image is simply presented, not described or commented on. Adjectives are used sparingly. (image: something perceptible to the senses)
2. Simultaneity: quality of happening right now, present tense--a moment frozen. A haiku does not narrate.
3. A haiku always contains some reference to nature, and/or a seasonal reference.
4. No abstraction; a haiku presents things, not concepts.5. No figures of speech (nothing is compared to anything--no similes, metaphors, personification or attribution